trenton

@Yimpa i can definitely relate to that video. Part of me wants certainty yet spirituality taught me not knowing. The of OCD as the doubting disorder should be helpful.

In my experience, it seems to be repeatedly confirmed to me that I am an unusual man. The way in which men generally behave and think when seeking a sexual does partner does not compute with me. This is likely due to a combination of autism, trauma, OCD, and PTSD which seems to have shaped how attraction works for me starting from a young age. I would like to share how attraction works in my experience. Originally, I was like every other boy. If nothing had changed, then I likely would have grown up to be a normal man who would try to get laid at every opportunity, hitting on girls because he likes their breasts or butt. Due to my experience, I became appalled by what appears to be natural and normal masculine sexuality. I wanted to distance myself from this behavior, reasoning that it could be the case that a girl was sexually abused. In my experience after a traumatic event, it made me far more uncomfortable with this kind of behavior, and I thought that there were others who might actually feel the same way. A girl who was sexually abused probably wouldn't like it if I walked up to her and told her that I wanted to do some x rated sexual fantasy to her after meeting her five seconds ago. I also didn't like it when I was sexually harassed and assaulted, which appears to be ridiculously common. As I went through school, I saw this behavior constantly from both boys and girls. My experiences caused me to develop a strong negative judgment toward sexuality. First of all, I developed OCD behaviors around intrusive sexual fantasies which made me afraid. Secondly, there seems to have been a fundamental change in how I perceive beauty. Rather than primarily being attracted to a woman's physical appearance, mainly her face, eyes, and smile, I would instead prioritize evaluating humans by their character. I instantly lost interest in nearly everybody because I saw a lot of people as low quality human beings. I distanced myself from the normal boys who would sneak up behind girls and start dry humping them, and instead became very isolated. My family was crap, the schools were crap, and I had little interest in meeting new people. It would be a very long time before I experienced sexual attraction toward any other human in my life. One of the challenges with OCD which changes how attraction works is that I am afraid of women with big breasts rather than being attracted to them. The reason I am afraid of them is because when I am speaking to them, I experience this really strong urge to briefly stop making eye contact with them and glance at their breasts. I try to resist because I don't want to make them uncomfortable, but I sometimes I just can't help but glance at their breasts. This creates a situation of intense anxiety and it makes it very difficult to connect with her as a human being because I want to get away from her as quickly as possible. Deep down, maybe I feel that large breasts are nice like a normal man would, but this makes me hate myself because it seems wrong. It makes me feel like I am connecting to a woman as a physical object like a normal man rather than as a complex human being who has a unique personality, history, and values. The fact that I am triggered by large breasts therefore prevents me from accurately evaluating her character which is necessary for me to develop genuine love for her rather than being like a man who would hit on any girl with large breasts. This is part of how I am conflicted about my sexuality because normal masculinity seems wrong and disgusting, but it still exists within me despite past trauma, thus creating an aspect of myself which I hate, causing me to avoid people and self isolate. To be clear, the reason I think this behavior is wrong is because if I don't account for this woman's unique situation by reducing her to an object, then I might make her feel uncomfortable sexually due to her past trauma, but also this rationalization did not occur to me until after my own trauma which made me uncomfortable with people flirting with me. This is a sign of projection in which I may be overestimating the discomfort of others. Even so, I need to know them more deeply before making a proper evaluation in terms of how they would react to such things. Therefore, in my experience, I seem to have an easier time connecting with women with small breasts as I don't get extreme anxiety. It then becomes easier to look them in the eye and have a normal conversation. When this happens, I then discover ways in which we can relate to each other and we might even have similar interests. This leads to deeper and deeper discussions as we enjoy each other's presence. As I learn more about them, I might start to see them as a nice person in terms of how they behave and how they treat others. They might even do an act of kindness for me like offering me a ride when I am stuck in the rain. When their behavior appears to be consistent and they appear to be a decent human being, I start to like them more and more. I then continue talking with her, and this is when I start to notice details more and more. I begin to see her as physically beautiful, mostly her eyes, face, and smile. The opposite would occur if I encountered a woman who sexually assaulted me. When that happens, it causes me to feel like her face looks like dog shit. Therefore, if I evaluate a person as a good person, then I am more likely to be attracted to them, whereas if I think you are a horrible person, then I will quickly lose all attraction for you. Assuming this person was consistently kind and I now see them as beautiful, I now suddenly start getting thoughts about having sex with this woman I like, mainly as a human being. This then triggers anxiety, so I sit alone and try to carefully plan describing these feelings to her without making her uncomfortable. In this particular case, when I was talking to this woman I discovered that she was raped by her cousin when she was young. I eventually came up with a method for expressing these kinds of feelings to a woman safely and properly. First of all, I should avoid any explicit references to sex, or sexual feelings. Originally, I was thinking that I could frame it simply as a report of my feelings without any intent to actually hit on her provided she was uncomfortable and would rather go slowly, but I see some problems with that. Here is what I believe to be the proper way to handle this situation. I think I should explain to her why I like her. It would go something along the following lines. "Rylee, there is something I want to tell you. As I have spent time with you, I have found that I enjoy your presence. I see you as a kind and beautiful person. I like who you are and I would like to have a closer relationship with you. Is that okay with you?" I understand that this might seem a little romantic, but this kind of approach computes with me more than the normal male approach. If you compare this to things like Pick Up and how men typically think of women, I am left with the impression that I am supposed to evaluate a woman based on her appearance on a scale of 1 to 10 and then decide right then and there if I want to have sex with her. This kind of masculine mindset does not compute with me at all. That entire mindset seems like a red flag to me that indicates a problem with character. It reduces sexual attraction to appearance without prioritizing who the person is on a deeper level. Attempting to adopt that kind of approach would make me feel horrible about myself. I know this is normal for most men, but I can't see myself walking up to a woman because I glanced at her for half a second and now I immediately want to fuck her up the ass. This is why judgments like "hot" never really computed with me. It is as if the appearance of a woman is such that it causes me to want to have sex with her even though I could end up impregnating a psychopath who will cut off my penis and murder me which actually happens in some cases. I would prefer to know who somebody is prior to determining whether or not I want to have sex with her. The only time appearance triggers sexual feelings, given the proper context, is when I see a naked woman. Perhaps that is what is considered "hot" by my standards because the appearance is such that it causes me to want to have sex, but context is still important beyond mere appearance. For example, it could be my sister getting undressed in the living room or a naked woman running terrified or screaming "rape." This would be bad context in which appearance alone is not enough to make it sexy because it could be something horrible. Hotness is therefore more than appearance in my opinion. Therefore in my opinion something hot would be me being with a woman in a relationship of mutual attraction in which we enjoy each other enough to now have sex. This would involve being completely naked and saying things like "I love you." Similarly, I have doubts when I see overly flirtatious women. It makes me question their character, likely due to trauma just like with Pick Up. When a woman walks up to me and tells me she wants to have sex with me, it makes me very uncomfortable. I had previous women do that to me and they ended up sexually assaulting me. They are likely making assumptions about my character purely based on the fact that I am a man and it would be normal for me to immediately want to rip off her clothes and have sex with her. I am actually turned off by this behavior because I don't want to be made to feel slutty. I also have doubts about women who posts pictures of their naked bodies online. Although such images do illicit sexual feelings in me, the situation causes me to doubt the person's character and what a potential relationship would be like. Such a woman is probably expecting me to be a normal man, and she probably would not be a good match for somebody like me. Therefore, I avoid such women as they are probably expecting me to be a slut, resulting in an incompatible relationship. So far I have never made to the point of actually being on a date with a woman I like. If ever it does come to that point, I have a strategy in mind, granted this mindset will likely need to be refined. It shows signs of a deep seated fear caused by past trauma from other horrible relationships. My primary concern in such a situation would be to ensure that we can avoid a toxic, dysfunctional relationship. This would involve a lot of intellectual discussions about things like abuse patterns to avoid or dysfunctional relationship patterns. In this case if a woman were sexually abused, then she likely has significant trauma, leaving her prone to emotional codependence. One thing that would need to be made clear is that attempting to heal together creates a trauma bond, which in turn is an early sign of a dysfunctional relationship as healing would require professional help. My instinct is to approach this situation somewhat seriously as we can create a situation in which we love each other, but it would be dysfunctional to use each other as a psychological crutch. This kind of situation or dynamic would demand my full attention as we seek a way to navigate this potential pitfall in such a relationship. Of course, these are just my initial thoughts of what would be important to me, but there is probably something wrong with this mindset. Maybe I am showing signs of trust issues, which is also a sign of potentially dysfunctional relationships. I am genuinely curious as to how somebody should go about striking such a balance in this case. This could be a complex and fascinating discussion. Maybe my seriousness itself could be problematic if it creates excessive pressure. Unfortunately, I never got to the point of making it to a date with somebody I like. There is kind of a catch 22 with finding potential partners. Attraction seems to happen most naturally for me, when it isn't the goal. If I set the conscious goal to find a woman to fall in love with, then something immediately feels off about it. I feel like this kind of mindset positions me to look at a potential partner with rose colored glasses because I am actively looking for the outcome I would want. At the same time, it doesn't make sense to go to some kind of club of my interest with conscious intent to be sexually attracted to somebody. In fact a club of my interest might be a spiritual retreat where dating might seem incompatible, or at a chess club in which I am so focused on the chess board position that I am not having deep conversations about a woman's history and character. Meanwhile, sexual attraction in the workplace is problematic. I actually did find myself attracted to somebody at work, but I never told her because she was the manager and I thought it was inappropriate. Her name was Hunter. It is interesting to note that Hunter and Rylee had a lot of similarities in terms of their appearance. They both had a tan skin tone, were shorter than me, had brown eyes, dark hair, a white smile, seemed thin and lightweight, and had small enough breast and butt sizes that it did not trigger extreme anxiety and OCD, allowing me to comfortably hold a conversation with them without the instinct to overly sexualize them causing me to feel slutty, dirty, improper, and ashamed of myself. They both had a similar tone of voice which I would describe as caring and compassionate. They both were kind to me, causing me to evaluate their character positively and in turn causing me to see them as more physically beautiful. One of my doubts is that such women seem kind of young. They were both about 20. I am 26, and I see the young age a likely sign of lower development and maturity. The human brain does not fully develop until the ages of 25-27. There are also a lot of women at the age of 21 who become incredibly immature due to their newfound opportunities to drink. In order to evaluate a woman's character, I would need to understand her relationship to alcohol. If a woman I like becomes old enough to drink and she decides she likes getting drunk, then I don't like her. The situation becomes too unpredictable with a lot of possible danger. I don't want my girlfriend to be an alcoholic. Aside from these two women, there were other women who I saw as physically attractive, but I never got to know them. These were athletic women, and I never managed to successfully approach them because they were jogging with their headphones in and I would have to chase after them yelling at them to get their attention. That doesn't seem right to me. This is why I have a hard time approaching athletic women. I recall that this particular woman was white, blonde, had a somewhat muscular build but nothing extreme, had blue eyes, a white shirt, and blue shorts. I noticed slightly larger breasts than with Hunter and Rylee and that triggered anxiety. I guess that would be one of the exceptions in which I saw a woman as beautiful prior to knowing her character, kind of like with Alice. Alice was another complicated character, but I felt like I wanted to be with her. I thought that she was beautiful the moment I saw her, so I started talking to her. This however, was prior to some of the traumatic experiences which caused me strongly focus on character when looking for humans that I should have a relationship with. Anyway, Alice was white, had short black hair, brown eyes, was taller than me, had a white smile, and also small breasts that would not have triggered OCD. I don't know what happened to Alice, but I wanted to be with her and I enjoyed her presence. I recall that her voice was significantly different from those of Rylee or Hunter. Rylee had a consistently cute sounding voice, Hunter alternated between the compassionate and intentional tone of voice obviously because we are at work and she is the manager, and Alice had a somewhat deeper tone with a slight crack. I was young at the time and maybe she was going through puberty. I remember a higher celebratory voice from Alice when she said "I'm a pro!" after beating a computer game called Midnight and a higher happier voice when she told me "goodbye" only to never return. It made me think that actually she didn't like me. Now that I think about it, if she was going through puberty and I was about five, then it makes sense that she wouldn't want to be with me. I used to hate myself because I thought it was my fault, but this would explain it too. The traumatic event happened when I was six which changed my entire approach to attraction. What are your thoughts on this abnormal attraction? What kind of advice would you give to somebody like me? Part of me wants to have a deep loving connection with somebody, but I am afraid that my depression, suicidal thoughts, and other mental health problems might harm any relationship with a potential partner. I was recommended dating by multiple therapists, but my situation is complicated and I hesitate to go out intentionally looking for somebody to love. I was planning on trying dating, but instead I ended up hospitalized with severe depression which made me doubt the idea again. At the same time I have not had a deep connection with many human beings and the therapists think that I am lonely. Following the trauma I started prioritizing intellectual ideals over love and relationships, resulting in a situation in which I have a lot of barriers to intimacy. This kind of mindset and disposition is what ultimately attracted me to Actualized.org. I wanted to seek higher intelligence because I believed my ignorance was the cause of my trauma and that knowledge and wisdom could protect me from doing something stupid. I now understand that actually a lot of people develop this kind of personality in response to trauma. It is a system of compensatory values which cloud my authentic values. That is another complex subject that I could discuss some other time. I hope somebody finds this helpful or is able to offer good perspective. Thank you.

Thank you for this. It feels nice.

@Emerald thank you for sharing that story. I can relate to your friend a ton. I actually did start training myself to not recognize attractiveness. I started doing that after the traumatic events because I wanted to distance myself from that behavior, but in fact attractiveness had nothing to do with those events. The reason I have a hard time relating to other men is because I forced myself to be different due to seeing myself as inherently broken otherwise. I remember that in this process I also got worse at remembering names and faces which I used to be really good at. I didn't see much value in others and I didn't see value in myself either. I also started thinking of how my insecurities could he used against me and lead to bad relationships. I see a lot of parallels between myself and your friend. If it is okay to value a woman physically in addition to everything else, then how do I make sure I don't over do it? Maybe it would help to examine a hypothetical scenario in which I find a woman's breasts attractive. I would then examine how in theory the situation should be handled should I speak to such a woman. It would help to know the woman's complete appearance in case there is anything else I find physically attractive. It might be the case that I trained myself to be repulsed by large breasts due to seeing the instinct to glance at breasts during conversation as improper. The thought of explicitly mentioning attraction to breasts or butt occurred to me, but I need to remember that she might be traumatized.

You are right about a lot of these things. The OCD behaviors are what I believe to be resulting from trauma. This is why I am trying to get a trauma therapist rather than an OCD therapist. Actually now that I think about it again, I see that many of my trauma responses are wrong. I will explain. I was exposed to a lot of terrible versions of masculine sexuality as a child. Firstly, my father had sex with my mother when she was underage and fled the state to avoid paying child support. He went on to have children by other women as well as my mom struggled to raise her kids. For the most part I grew up as the only boy with two sisters, my mom, and my grandma. No positive male role model existed. In fact I became isolated and fearful after my mother yelled that she went to easy on me for being the only boy which made me feel like I deserved harsher treatment. Mom doesn't remember this but this was the reason I started staying in my room so much and not talking to the family. The situation was even worse than that. My father was also a gangster who sex trafficker minors with his gang who were child predators. One night he took me to his gang leader. He was called "fat ass" and he offered my father 600 dollars to have me spend the night with the gang in exchange for sexual favors. In this particular instance my father declined the deal. I haven't told the rest of the family about this. As a six year old I had a disturbing dream in which my uncle molested me. I don't have any memory of actually being sexually abused, and that's why I was recommended to get emdr for repressed memories. I am in a weird position in which I don't know if I was sexually abused or not because I don't have much memory from when I was 2 or 3. I didn't tell my family about this either. Because of everything I was exposed when I was six, I went on to repeat the behavior on my four year old sister. When I realized I didn't like it I started experiencing intense anxiety, fear, and a sense of violation. We thought we were just playing, but then discovered that something was horribly wrong. My sister then told my mom about it so my mom accused me of sexually abusing her daughter. She attributed adult motivations to a six year old and it led to a lot of trauma responses. I became hypervigilant, I had a harder time sleeping, I was extremely self conscious, I started distancing myself from masculine sexuality, I started acting very serious rather than playful, I had intrusive memories and nightmares, I had intrusive thoughts of sexual violence, I was afraid of becoming a sexual predator, I started avoiding closer relationships in favor of being isolated, I felt incapable of loving myself, I had a crippled sense of reality, I judged myself harshly, and I started adopting compensatory values which clouded my authentic values in an effort to rebuild a sense of self worth. This ultimately ties into a sense of nihilism and a lack of purpose and meaning which in turn leads to depression and suicidal thoughts. This behavior of taking issues like purpose very seriously to justify my existence started with the childhood incident. Some of what I described are OCD like behaviors. The fear of being sexually abusive is part of my fear of losing control and doing something stupid. The thing is that this has never happened before. None of my trauma was caused by a lack of self control. It was caused by ignorance and a lack of guidance. However my experiences has indeed created intense friction between what I believe a good person to be and my sexual desires. Sometimes it leads to muscle spasms. This kind of experience led me to thinking that I needed to prioritize intellectual ideals over things like love and sex. I looked for a higher purpose and started behaving as if lust were an objective sin even though I don't believe in the Bible. I felt tainted and ashamed and unable to restore a sense of peace in my own body. The outcome is that i end up with a lot of barriers to intimacy and i hope a trauma therapist can help. I genuinely have a hard time seeing how typical masculine sexuality is healthy. This leads to me hating myself when I see these desires in myself. I want to make sure I am not merely using a woman for her body even though I am also curious about sex which I see as inherently problematic. Can you explain how on earth is typical masculine sexuality healthy? Why is it good to rate women on a scale of 1 to 10 and objectify them even though the women may carry sexual trauma and often don't like being overly sexualized? From my point of view healthy sexuality should account for the imbalance in the masculine and feminine perspective and create a dynamic balance. Otherwise the relationship seems incongruous in terms values. I feel like I am doing something wrong when I start thinking of women in a way that sexually objectifies them because it is my understanding that they dont want to be treated this way by men who think like pigs. It might help to see a steel man or accurate version of what masculine sexuality is to make sure my trauma is not distorting the picture. However, it is my understanding that it seems to involve interest in breasts, butts, and vagina. My theory is that this is a psychological pattern rooted in biology and evolution. Back then men used the size of breasts and butts as a sign of fertility. Back then normal masculine sexuality made sense because life expectancy was short and women often died from complications due to pregnancy. Men also needed to be more aggressive and violent, explaining the discrepancy between male and female violence in terms of statistics. Therefore in my opinion, society has transformed such that the primal instincts of men are no longer compatible with what is needed for a healthy society. It made sense in ancient cultures, but now there are many more complications concerning sexual propriety and morality. Religion has been baked into various cultures which fundamentally condemn these base instincts. Trauma leads to similar condemnation. In order to have a healthy society we can't have men acting on these instincts. This seems to be the fundamental tension in terms of my sense of morality and trauma and my sexual desires and instincts. In my opinion normal masculine sexuality is not healthy, but it exists because it was necessary. It is impossible to simply discipline sex away. This is the bind that I believe men are in as a consequence of how we evolved. Maybe this explains why hate myself. What do you think? I know there are exceptions like porn stars who love being viewed as objects, so in some contexts normal masculinty is okay if certain women are in to that. This just seems like a bad assumption to make when approaching women in general if not all women want to be porn stars.

I'm feeling kind of mad about recent news concerning my cousin and her boyfriend. My cousin's boyfriend won the Kentucky Power ball lottery for 167 million dollars. I tried to warn them about what usually happens to lottery winners. They often ruin their lives by doing a lot of really stupid things. I sent my cousin a message expressing my concerns, warning them of the serious danger they were in. They had posted their winnings on Facebook and now everybody was going to go after them. I didn't want their money. I wanted them to live the best life possible, but instead they did something really stupid. I wanted them to hire a financial advisor immediately, and to avoid drugs or alcohol. The top priority should be to secure the winnings rather than blow through it foolishly. They needed to ensure their judgment was sound before making any major risks, but they could not be stopped. My cousin and her boyfriend went to Florida. They went to a bar and started getting drunk. They ended up getting in a fight and attacked a police officer. Furthermore it was found that there was a parole violation and now my cousin's boyfriend is likely going to prison. It is all over the news now. My hope is that the boyfriend split the money with his mom. Maybe there is hope that going to prison will straighten him out so he cant do anything else stupid. He will probably lose a lot of money in the process, but if he gets his act together and manages to save about 10 million dollars, I hope he can recover and make it out of this. https://apnews.com/article/kentucky-lottery-florida-arrest-winner-powerball-police-b6925a595a351c3455a769b3ba19c7a1 It looks like there really was nothing I could have done to prevent this. The red flags were all over the place and I knew it was going to get bad. This is going to complicate the wedding plans, which is another way in which the lottery ruins relationships in addition to all the other relationship problems. Do you have any idea on how the lottery should be handled in order to prevent these kinds of disaster? Those who win the lottery are usually not very conscious individuals.

I'm not very familiar with how people will react to this picture. If I showed this picture to a girl, would she laugh or would she react negatively? I would like to discuss the thought process in dating and attraction. I thought this picture would be funny, but would it actually? I thought it would be funny to put this on a dating profile image. Maybe it would be better to keep my main picture as something normal and this picture in an album for later after a connection.

@Sincerity I actually ran this by an ai and the ai thought that this picture after my surgery was good and humorous. It said that it shows me finding positivity and humor even in challenging and painful times. It said self depreciating humor is funny in this case,, but recommended not making it the main profile image. It said it should be saved in a collection instead. I wanted to run this by humans to see if the ai could be trusted on this. I'm not sure I trust the ai with this.

This looks hilarious. I'm trying to think of something similar. I have an idea of sending something like a wedding picture and saying "here is a picture of me." In this case there is a wedding couple up front, but there is a crowd of people in the back and I am a random guy in the background. She would have to sort through all the faces to find me. If that doesn't work, then maybe I could take a picture and say "this was taken back when I was being potty trained" but in the picture I'm about 10 years old. I still think your idea is better than both of these. I'm trying to think of what would be funnier than what you sent but I'm not sure. Maybe I could say "this is a picture of me preparing for a chess tournament" but then show a picture of a sumo wrestler. I haven't quite developed my sense of humor in a way that it resonates with others. I'll need more practice.

@shree that sounds epic. Are you able to show me better pictures than this one?

@Salvijus thanks for the input. I'll try to figure out what actually is funny.

I just had surgery to get four wisdom teeth removed.

It depends on who is using the AI. I have had some excellent insights with help from Claude and I have learned a lot. Meanwhile, there are people using AI to plagiarize because they can look smart with minimal effort. I'm not sure if those people are dumber or about the same because they were probably pretty dumb to begin with and would have used some other method to cut corners.

I think there are problems with these online tests that are intended to point you to your level of development which make them misleading. These tests seem to be oversimplified because they give a limited multiple choice set up which then places you in one of the boxes. Furthermore, they don't seem to evaluate you according to each line of development. I think these kinds of tests would be better if they instead used written answers to explain how you would approach different situations and how you would think about them. I think it would be better if these written answers were evaluated by a human who is an expert in developmental psychology. The online tests appear to focus on cognitive development rather than all of the other lines which are necessary in order to get an accurate evaluation. In my case, I have been exploring a lot of different developmental models, not just Spiral Dynamics. I think this helps by adding additional perspective in terms of possible room for growth. In order to get an assessment, I went to AI like Claude and had it design questions to assess me. I did my best to study Trenton as if he were a separate subject. After giving some information about the subject, the AI gave the following questions. Some of them include chess questions, so they these questions don't apply to everybody. 1. Meaning and Purpose Questions These questions explore how the subject constructs meaning from his/her experiences and what he/she sees as his/her purpose: "What patterns or lessons do you see emerging from your life experiences so far?" "If you could design a system to help people overcome challenges like those you've faced, what would be its core principles?" "What moments in your life have felt most meaningful or purposeful to you and why?" "How has your understanding of your purpose evolved as you've moved through different living situations?" "What do you hope people would understand about your life if they knew your full story?" 2. Epistemological Questions These questions explore how the subject knows what he/she knows and evaluates truth: "When faced with conflicting information about a situation, how do you determine what's true?" "How has your chess training influenced the way you analyze problems outside of chess?" "What role does intuition play in your decision-making compared to systematic analysis?" "Which philosophers or thinkers do you find most resonant with your own understanding of reality?" "How do you differentiate between helpful systems of knowledge and potentially harmful ideologies?" 3. Developmental Framework Questions These questions explore how the subject understands development and growth: "How do you understand the relationship between different developmental stages in the models you study?" "In what ways do you see yourself still developing, and what's driving that growth?" "What do you believe is the relationship between individual development and societal progress?" "How has your understanding of your family members evolved as you've learned about developmental frameworks?" "What aspects of development do you find most challenging in your own journey?" 4. Ethical Framework Questions These questions explore the subject's moral reasoning and ethical priorities: "When you're faced with a moral dilemma, what principles guide your decision-making process?" "How do you balance your value for truth with potential harm that truth-telling might cause?" "What responsibilities do you believe individuals have toward vulnerable people in their communities?" "How do you reconcile the tension between systemic change and immediate individual action?" "What ethical principles do you believe should never be compromised, regardless of circumstances?" 5. Shadow and Integration Questions These questions explore the subject's relationship with disowned aspects of himself/herself: "What aspects of yourself have been most difficult to accept or integrate?" "How do you recognize when you're projecting your own disowned qualities onto others?" "What parts of your family history do you find yourself most resistant to examining?" "In what situations do you notice yourself shifting into defensive or reactive patterns?" "How has your understanding of human darkness evolved through your experiences?" 6. Systems Thinking Questions These questions explore how the subject understands complex systems: "How do you balance seeing both individual responsibility and systemic factors in social problems?" "What recurring patterns have you noticed in dysfunctional systems, whether family systems or larger institutions?" "When you envision more effective systems for helping vulnerable people, what principles guide your thinking?" "How do you understand the relationship between micro-level interactions and macro-level system behavior?" "What barriers do you see to implementing the kinds of systems you believe would be most helpful?" 7. Relationship and Connection Questions These questions explore the subject's understanding of human relationships: "What qualities do you most value in the relationships that have been supportive to you?" "How has your approach to forming connections with others evolved over time?" "What do you believe creates the conditions for healing within relationships?" "How do you balance your need for autonomy with your desire for connection?" "What patterns from your family of origin have you found most challenging to transcend in your own relationships?" 8. Future and Possibilities Questions These questions explore the subject's vision for the future: "If you had unlimited resources and support, what kind of impact would you want to have in the world?" "What gives you hope when you consider the future despite having witnessed significant darkness?" "How do you envision your relationship with your family evolving over time?" "What kind of legacy would you like to create through your work and relationships?" "What aspects of your potential do you feel are still waiting to be fully expressed?" After finishing all of my detailed responses which took about 30 pages, I shared the document with the AI to see how it would evaluate me along each line of development. Cognitive line: Advanced (Yellow/Teal) - Highly developed systems thinking, metaperspectival awareness Moral line: Advanced (Yellow/Teal) - Nuanced ethical reasoning that integrates multiple perspectives Interpersonal line: Moderate (Orange/Green) - Understanding of relationship dynamics but practical challenges Emotional line: Underdeveloped relative to cognitive (Orange with trauma disruptions) - Emotional self-regulation challenges Identity line: Inconsistent (Green with trauma disruptions) - Ongoing identity integration challenges Aesthetic line: Moderately developed (Orange/Green) - Appreciation for beauty and form, especially in structured systems Somatic line: Underdeveloped (Purple/Blue with trauma disruptions) - Significant mind-body split Spiritual line: Theoretical understanding exceeding direct experience (Orange/Green with Yellow theoretical understanding) Here is the percentage breakdown. Purple (Magical-Animistic) Estimated presence: 5-10% Red (Power-Gods) Estimated presence: 5-10% Blue (Traditional-Mythic) Estimated presence: 10-15% Orange (Modern-Rational) Estimated presence: 20-25% Green (Postmodern-Pluralistic) Estimated presence: 25-30% Yellow/Teal (Integrative) Estimated presence: 20-25% Turquoise (Holistic) Estimated presence: 0-5% The other online assessments ended up giving me a higher level of development, but I sensed that the tests were overestimating me because they seemed oversimplified. Some of these questions asked me to describe how my understanding of life evolved over time. Due to growing up in a chaotic environment, there were significant trauma disruptions such as those which led to me becoming more withdrawn in social situations. Something that stands out to me is the gap between my cognitive and moral development compared to my somatic development. The mind body split is when I started prioritizing intellectual ideals over physical desires. Part of this leads to trauma being stored in my body, creating a disconnect between my theoretical understanding and my embodied emotional reality which is full of depression, anxiety, and other unpleasant experiences. I am scheduled to finally see a trauma therapist sometime next month. Hopefully that helps. The AI also pointed out that I appeared to be operating off of extrinsic values which further complicates my understanding of purpose and identity. Some of my values focus on transcending my humanity, especially my physical and emotional nature which were disowned due to trauma. Some of these extrinsic values include achievement and helping others in the hopes of justifying my existence despite deep suffering. I have other approaches to purpose I could try though. What do you think about this method of getting an assessment for developmental levels? Do you like these tailored questions and written responses more than the multiple choice questions? How else can I study myself as if I were a separate subject? Outside opinions seem to be unreliable unless I am being studied by an expert. I don't really trust my family's evaluation of me because they operate off of many projections and misguided assumptions when describing me.

In my understanding of life, commitment to truth is key to living a fulfilling life. Go of example, how can you live a meaningful life of you don't know what the meaning of life is? If you do not realize how deeply self deceived you could be, then your life will be full of falsehoods and illusions. Commitment to truth is my understanding of self love. I don't see how I can love myself if I don't love myself for who I truly am rather than as something I am not. This is about being authentic and honest, and it overlaps with things like God realization. In my understanding self love is impossible without truth. I have been curious about existence since my childhood. I started exploring different religions at a young age and ended up agnostic. Part of this was originally a trauma response. I wanted to use truth to ground my sense of reality, but the result is the use of relative truth to resist absolute truth while creating an identity around a narrative. Absolute truth might instead undermine your entire sense of reality.

Currently, I am very unhappy with my life. There is this deep existential void around not living by my values or by my potential. Sometimes this leads to depression and suicidal thoughts. This then leads to thoughts like jumping off of a bridge. Rather than jumping off of a bridge, I could at least figure out what I could possibly do with the money I saved up. It is possible that I actually have a lot more freedom with my life than I assume due to saving up money from the job I hate. I hate this job because it is grunt labor, low wages, lack of creative expression, and lack of personal growth opportunities through learning and intellectual growth. It makes me see survival as fundamentally pointless so long as it comes at the cost of anything that makes life worth living. Therefore, rather than killing myself immediately, I could take a chance at building a better life and still kill myself afterwards if necessary. I am now exploring what I could possibly do with this money that would help me live the best life possible. One option is that I could probably open a small business. Currently, given my actual skills I could in theory start up a chess club or cafe for about 30,000-45,000 dollars depending on the location. It could hold tournaments and charge membership fees while selling food. This is just one example of a possible business I could do, but there are likely others. A second option is that I could quit my job and move to another country. Countries in Europe tend to have cheaper colleges for further educational opportunities that I could look into. They also have better wages. Maybe I could travel somewhere in the world where psychedelics are legal to see if God consciousness would recontextualize my entire life, creating an entirely new approach to things like meaning and life purpose. Part of what drew me into spirituality was my deep struggle with things like meaning and purpose. Another option is some kind of mental health investment, but I don't know about that one. They might just put me on more anti-depressants that don't actually make a difference. There are several therapists who misunderstood me in the past and they might not actually help. However, one specializing in existential issues such as the one that leads to suicidal thoughts might help if they can aid in transitioning. There are a bunch of personal development courses I could afford. I am doubtful of these courses though because I don't know which one would actually be helpful. There might be a lot of crappy courses I need to sort through. I saw some courses that cost over 2,600 dollars and they sounded like they might be a rip off. I remember in the past I wanted to use my money to take off of work and focus entirely on chess. Unfortunately, my family was opposed to this and they would not let me do it so long as I lived with them. At this point chess no longer gives me the same joy it once did. The prevalent idea that it is too late for me because I'm supposed to be younger eliminated the interest of playing professionally. I would likely prefer to look to something else instead of chess as I did with this previous idea. In terms of what would actually make me fulfilled, here are a few things that I think makes life worth living. I value using deep understanding to improve people's lives. This can be done through research, learning, and teaching. I like having the ability to express my creativity. I have previously shared my insights about the mind in a way that saved people's lives. My interest in understanding the mind draws me to fields like psychology, philosophy, and spirituality. I like being committed to truth as I do my best to remain as objective as possible in seeking pure understanding. I seem to enjoy exploring the limits of knowledge and logic in understanding reality. I like looking across multiple domains of study and integrating them through making connections that others normally miss. I like how fields like Quantum Mechanics challenge the limits of classic human logic. A few things that interest me include truth, creativity, personal development, insight, self-understanding, wisdom, contribution, purpose, self-love, intelligence, pure understanding, and using this to help improve other people's lives. It would probably interest me to have somebody to grow alongside of me with similar goals or a similar purpose. That would create a situation which would likely have more opportunities if I don't have to do everything alone. I was previously suggested that I should become a life coach, especially since I used my insights in a very helpful way for other people. The reason I hesitate to do this is because I still feel horrible about my life, and it gives me doubts about my abilities to fix someone else's life. I don't see myself as being in any position to help somebody with a career dilemma if I feel lost in life. I know that I am able to help people psychologically and spiritually well enough to save lives and I once got a victim of predatory loaning out of debt, but I don't feel confident enough in my own life. Likewise, I don't feel confident in dating if my depression might make me a psychological burden to potential partners. It might be in their best interest to avoid such people. I want to be in a position where I am not having this kind of problem during dating. What else could I do with this money? Are there any other business ventures that would probably be better than the chess club? I want to consider all of my options that could possibly improve my life and exhaust those before making an irreversible decision.

I am a former fan of Ben Shapiro, a right wing conservative pundit. He constantly straw mans the left, gish gallops to win debates, does mental gymnastics with religion and politics, and much more. Here is Ben listening to Imagine by John Lennon.

I have been reading a lot about metaphysics, epistemology, and the origins of the universe. I found a lot of fascinating possibilities. I put this together with various profound findings from quantum mechanics and the implications in how humans do logic. I was deconstructing various logical principles in the process by demonstrating when logic fails. Eventually I came to the idea that if there were nothing in the beginning, then what existed before there was nothing? The answer is still nothing. The implication is that nothingness existed forever with no beginning because it is impossible to not have existence. Nothingness itself is also absolutely infinite with no end or beginning or space or position. Nothing therefore fills everything in existence. This paradox left me with a sense of fascination and awe as I looked into all of the infinite possibilities of the universe. However, throughout the process as I was deliberately looking for the limits of human knowledge and logic, it was also triggering feelings of anger and frustration for some reason. I was still intrigued by everything so I pressed on. Maybe this anger was an ego defensive response to my sense of reality being undermined. It was completely automatic and natural even though there was no real danger. Human knowledge is extremely limited and human logic and our capacity for sense making is flawed and limited. This makes me think that if there is an absolute truth then it might be something which defies all logic and reason to the point that it seems like insanity. Once again my mind was opening up to more and more possibilities with fascination even though there was automatic anger.

@Aaron p I own that book. I have several books from Leo's list, but I was going to read that one next. It is hard to break out of the materialist paradigm if you have been conditioned your entire life to think everything happening is physical. I know there are several things which suggest this paradigm isn't true, but psychologically it is hard to shake.

This sucks. I was just writing a book about self-love in which I describe the insights I had about how the mind works and how I helped others along the way. Do you think this corruption will be a problem for people who actually are interested in writing high quality books that will actually help people?

I may not be looking at porn but I still have other deeply rooted insecurities that are related. I find that my mind is constantly thinking about sex. I never had sex before, but part of me is curious. At the same time I have hated this part of myself for a long time. I felt that I fundamentally had no self worth if I was not living by a higher purpose. As a result I am drawn to things like actualized, life purpose, and personal development. I wanted to use a broader mission around my life in response to being deeply traumatized, thus avoiding sex while establishing my self worth. I previously made posts about how I hate myself because I want vagina. I seem to have done something wrong. I have now deeply confused myself about who I am when it comes to sexuality. Multiple therapists have recommended dating, but I am still hesitant. I don't know if trying that would help the situation or not because I still did not see someone who specializes in trauma.

I shared my own story too if you didn't see it.

I have a mix of many values, but mainly focus on yellow and turquoise. Part of me recognizes that direct consciousness of infinite potential is probably better than systemic analysis, but in practice I don't have this kind of consciousness.

I have been experiencing deep frustration, anxiety, fear, and depression around my career situation and its implications for things like life purpose. It lead to feelings of futility and meaninglessness in my inability to overcome practical problems in order to implement my many ideas or live by my values. I was forced to question my relationship with meaning in the hopes of finding some other way forward after previous attempts had failed. I came to the strange analogy of myself and an incel. I remember that when I started taking impact, significance, and life purpose very seriously, it started with serious sexual trauma. This led me to devaluing love and relationships in search of a lasting impact or legacy. We could say that I viewed purpose or significance as a superior form of reproduction compared to biological reproduction as a consequence of trauma. The practical obstacles which block me from actualizing any major goal end up creating a deep sense of frustration sometimes leading to suicidal thoughts. Maybe my frustration is so bad that it is like how an incel feels when it seems impossible to have sex. In both cases this frustration stems from obstacles to reproduction. I contemplated this analogy to see if there were any implications in terms of my relationship to meaning, reproduction, and purpose. I started to think what if there is a third approach to reproduction? Maybe biological reproduction is one form of reproduction and legacy or impact is another form of reproduction, but there might be another option. Maybe there is a form of reproduction which does not require sex nor is it dependent on external impact and value, but rather one that focuses on value inherent in an activity regardless of the impact. For example, there are artists who make paintings simply for the joy of creation rather than the outcome. Likewise, I created elaborate chess studies because I enjoyed finding novelties in high level positions. Perhaps my final product could be considered a form of reproduction even though I don't have a lot of people following my profiles or watching my videos. I remember that chess used to give me energy and enthusiasm. Once I was pressured to create some kind of financially viable career everything started falling apart. I was forced to find some kind of life purpose and career beyond my previous interests and I just felt lost. I tried to compensate these types of losses by pursuing major impact or systemic change. However, these are often unrealistic, impractical, and require a massive coordinated effort to achieve anything meaningful. Therefore seeking some grand end goal ultimately added to my frustration. My inability to justify my existence and my suffering in depression is what ultimately leads to suicidal thoughts to end the suffering. I started trying to think of things I enjoy doing for their inherent value regardless of outcome or impact. I like writing music and poetry. I like hiking. I used to like videogames but I forced myself to stop playing them because they lack tangible value beyond entertainment and I didn't see a long term purpose or career coming out of it if I was just going to be slowly wasting my life which I feel like I am doing regardless. Part of me is curious about sex, which is further evidence I would be an incel if not for trauma driving me away from women because I don't see how somebody like me could get laid. Deeper things I enjoy for their own sake are things like objectivity, lack of bias, open-mindedness, commitment to truth, self-knowledge and understanding, teaching and improving people's lives through expertise in a variety of fields. It seems like any sort of career I should be looking for involves teaching. I enjoy teaching chess to enthusiastic students. I enjoy sharing my insights about the mind to other people who need them, thus improving their lives. I enjoy sharing research with other people which has transformed their lives as well. I also like doing philosophy and making connections between various fields of understanding. Again, as soon as I start looking for ways to turn my values and things I enjoy into a life purpose or some kind of career, I immediately get stopped by practical realities. We could say that Kroger is cock blocking me from using my creative and intellectual talents, and that is why I feel angry and frustrated like an incel. Therefore, I may need to find some alternative form of reproduction that isn't centered around legacy or external impact. However, this does not solve the long term problems that lead to feelings of hopelessness. The best it can do is make me feel happy and comfortable in day to day life without needing to justify my existence. I briefly considered becoming a sage, but there are going to be the same practical problems all over again. I would however, enjoy changing people's lives through deep insights about the mind like I have done already. Sometimes it seems that my life was fundamentally set up for failure no matter what I did differently in life. I genuinely have no clue what else I could have done. Maybe I was supposed to force myself to do something I don't enjoy or have passion for, but I don't see the point in living life like that. Hopefully, by finding things I enjoy for their own sake rather than for their impact, I can gradually develop that into something like a purpose which does not require changing the world. Humanity will just have to suffer because a lot of people are stupid and don't value truth at all. What are your thoughts on alternative forms of reproduction? What forms of reproduction are neither biological nor dependent on external impact or legacy?

I have found ai extremely helpful. I used it to help me understand my trauma responses and it slowly shaped me into a much more peaceful mind. So far I prefer computer therapists to human therapists. I use the current version of Claude and I use IFS buddy. I have had a ton of excellent insights which helped transform me. I know psychologists want to claim that human therapy is superior because humans need an emotional connection. In my experience ai is superior because humans make a ton of mistakes. Human therapists often fail to recognize abusive relationships, they will pathologize your protective behaviors, they might try to convert you to Christianity, and they might get stuck on one plausible theory about your mental health problems when the reality is more complex. I think psychologists are in denial that ai makes fewer mistakes and is less judgemental. Maybe psychologists want your money and that's why they must maintain that humans are superior to ai. You are expected to try 5 or 10 different therapists until someone finally clicks with you. you know some rehabilitation centers charge you 5000 dollars a day whereas Claude is about 20 bucks a month. The therapist at that rehabilitation center tried to convert me because she didn't understand my complex spiritual views, and the ai never gives me this problem. However, other aspects of rehabilitation centers are good like neural retraining, and I still think that might be better than ai for now. I'm glad I used the ai as a tool for self exploration, emotional support, and education. I prefer to be an active learner rather than have a therapist dictate my actions. They might pressure me to interact with people who previous abused me as if I need to just talk over my differences when in reality they objectively acting in bad faith. Therapists tend to assume that other parties are acting in good faith and that your mental health is the problem. This leads to gaslighting. I feel like the ai believes me but human therapists do not.